To be updated once people give me my pictures…

So, I did a “walkabout” for my birthday. Basically, it was a celebration of many of the wonderful things about living in Taiwan, and a chance to hang out with some good friends. The plan was to meet up at the 鍋貼 restaurant by Yongchun MRT and walk from there to the Jingmei nightmarket, hitting 7-11’s on the way for snacks, beer and whatever else it would take to sustain us for the several hour walk.

It didn’t start off too well. Angelica got confused about when the party was and thought she’d already missed it the day before. Prince Roy started messaging people and trying to scare them off about the rain an hour and a half before the beginning of the walk. By 6:30, when everyone had agreed to meet, only Wayne, and David, who I hadn’t expected to want to go at all, were there. We had some 鍋貼, dumplings and soup and then we headed out like a herd of turtles!

The weather was great. Since it had rained earlier, it wasn’t too hot, and the traffic wasn’t that bad for a Saturday either. After passing 101, we cut through the Sunyat Sen Memorial park. It was slightly misty and its trees were a welcome reprieve from the city. At that point, I got in touch with Prince Roy, who had formed an evil “coalition of the unwilling” with Daniel and Poagao– vegetarians unwilling to eat 鍋貼. They had found some other place near Da’an Park, so we agreed to meet there. Wayne, David and I headed for to Ren’ai lu, passed AIT, and then went into the park. Unfortunately, the non-鍋貼-eating triumvirate was no longer near Da’an Park; they were all in the Shida nightmarket. Undaunted, we walked over there to meet them. Eric called, and I directed him that way as well.

After merging groups, things began to pick up a bit. We headed south, and went to Cafe Odeon, a particular favorite of PR’s. David and Daniel parted ways with us before arriving, but Holly, Angelica, and Anna all joined the celebration. At Wayne’s suggestion, we ordered the massive thirst-annihilator-sized bottle of St. Augustine. Technically it’s a beer, but it’s way stronger than a normal one and I had serious doubts about our ability to finish it. How foolish I was! It was gone within 20 minutes, everyone enjoyed finishing it. Poagao snapped some great pictures, but we didn’t devolve into the typical カメラ馬鹿 craziness that happens so much at b-day parties. As usual, Odeon was a lot of fun. It’s too bad PR won’t be around for any more trips there for several years.

After a few more pretentious Belgian Beers, our group stumbled out and headed south. Since it was already about 1AM, and Jingmei nightmarket was still so far away, we chose the Gongguan one instead. It was mostly closed. We walked all the way up to one of the restaurants by Wayne’s place, but it was closed, too. That left only one option… the night market by my place!

We needed two cabs. Eric, the three girls and I squeezed into the first cab and then suddenly, as we were getting into the cab, Wayne said that he, PR and TC had to go home^[1] and they wouldn’t be getting in the second. Fortunately, the yongchun nightmarket was still going strong. With several options, I went for my favorite seafood place. We got yam leaves, kung pao chicken, fish chin, another two plates of veggies, and who knows how much beer… It was good and didn’t even come out to 1000NT. It was a lot of fun hanging out with them, too, and it was a great way to end the party.

1: It turns out that Prince Roy was at work behind the scenes on this one, too. He led them to JBs for his own inscrutable purposes. I guess when you have your own island, you can do that stuff.

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